


Recursion of the Cybermen

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: (in an alternative timeline), Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel Shenanigans, cyberconversion and all that entails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8187223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: “There’s nothing out there. Nothing at all. No planets – not even any stars. No life, not for millions of years.” /  “Then who built this?” Drawn off course by an anomaly in time, the TARDIS lands on an impossible space station at the end of the universe, where the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find and old enemy and a shadow of the future.





	1. Episode 1

In the starless expanse, the dormant space station rolled, turning end over end, propelled by a distant explosion. Its grid of corridors was silent, chilly, drenched in shadows. At its centre, something throbbed like a heartbeat.

So it had been, the space station rolling end over end through the starless expanse, propelled by a distant explosion, its grid of corridors silent, chilly and dark, something throbbing at its heart, for a very long time.

At the centre of the station, a sound broke the silence. A reverberating wail, a grinding of engines that filled the compact space, stuttering like a blocked drainpipe. A light flared, briefly, and died.

In one of the chilly corridors, a sound broke the silence, a grinding, stuttering sound of engines. A light flared, briefly illuminating a nineteen-sixties London police box.

In a chamber at the furthest edge of the station, the sound again broke the silence, again wailed and stuttered. The light flashed, flickered, the police box fading messily in and out of synch, till finally with a gust of stale displaced air and a disgruntled _boom_ , it arrived.

 _There_ , it seemed to say. _I’ve landed. Are you happy now?_

The doors swung open and out tumbled the TARDIS’s three occupants, pursued by a billow of acrid-smelling smoke. “Oh,” said the Doctor, fanning his handkerchief. “Oh, oh dear. Best leave that to cool down, I think.”

“Is it over, Doctor?” said Zoe.

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Jamie darkly. “I should think it’s only just beginning. Eh, Doctor?”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, Jamie.” Gingerly, the Doctor closed the TARDIS doors. “We’ll have a nice stroll here till the fluid links have cooled and then we’ll be on our way.”

“It doesnae look so nice to me,” said Jamie.

As one, they looked properly at their surroundings. The cramped, cold chamber, windowless and metallic. The dead-tasting air, the sterile, featureless walls. “Well.” The Doctor cleared his throat. “We can still stretch our legs.” Reaching into his coat, he brought out one – two – three torches, one for each of them. Jamie toyed with his, flicking it on and shining the light into his face. “And while we’re at it, we might as well, ah, look for the temporal whatsit.”

Zoe and Jamie exchanged a look. He inclined his head. _You go._

She shook her head. _No, you._

He looked up at the ceiling. _I went last time._

She nudged him. _You owe me._

He rolled his eyes. _Fine._

Clearing his throat, Jamie said, “What’s a temporal whatsit, Doctor?”

“Hmm?” The Doctor was shining his torch into the corners of the room. “Oh, you know. A sort of, of – whosamacallit in time.”

“You mean a – a kind of temporal anomaly?” Zoe ventured.

The Doctor pulled a face. “If you like.”

“You mean, the thing that pulled us off course?” said Jamie.

“Keep up, Jamie,” said Zoe.

“Hey now, I’m trying.”

Zoe ignored him. “Just where exactly are we, Doctor?”

“ _Where_ isn’t the problem, Zoe,” he said darkly. “ _Where_ is rather a non-issue, I’m afraid.”

“ _When_ are we, then?” she asked.

“At the end.”

Jamie allowed the Doctor his dramatic pause, then said, “the end of… what?”

“The end of everything.” The beam of the Doctor’s torch shone on the external wall. “There’s nothing out there. Nothing at all. No planets – not even any stars. No life, not for millions of years.”

Zoe looked anxiously around the cabin. “Then who built this?”

“Well!” said the Doctor, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I imagine we shall, ah, learn that when we find the temporal whatsit. Come along!” Without waiting for Jamie and Zoe, he strode out into the darkened corridor. As they hastened after him, he said, “you go that way, I’ll go this, and I’ll, ah, meet you back at the TARDIS for tea.”

“But how will we know if we’ve found it?” said Zoe.

“Aye,” said Jamie. “What does a, a temporal whatsit look like?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, traipsing away into the shadows. “It looks rather like a time thingamabob. Stay together!” he called as his voice faded into the distance. “And if you find the whatsit, whatever you do, don’t play around with it!” The light of his torch flashed around a corner, and he was gone.

Jamie nudged Zoe. “D’you think he does it on purpose?”

*

The station was a neat, curving grid, not unlike a spider’s web. The chambers that opened off their corridor were empty or locked; the curling incline of the floor drew them closer and closer to the centre. Zoe could feel it happening, could see the pattern emerging, but she didn’t think they could fight it even if they wanted to. The temporal whatsit was sure to be at the heart of the station – and if there was something nasty waiting for them – well, when _wasn’t_ there something nasty waiting for them?

“So.” Jamie flashed his torch into a room. Empty. “What do you suppose we’re lookin’ for?”

Zoe didn’t have the slightest idea. She improvised. “I imagine something that looks out of sorts,” she said as they followed a sloping corridor down to a wide door. “Unnatural. Like it doesn’t belong. Like –”

Jamie hauled open the sliding door – and froze. “Like that?”

“Yes,” said Zoe, breath catching in her throat. “Yes, like that.”

Beyond the door was a round control room, lined with heaped up components, cables, circuits, huge quantities of power cells, all of it ripped from the walls and stacked seemingly at random. And in the centre of the room was –

“The time whatsit,” said Jamie, nodding sagely.

“I suppose it must be.”

Descending from the domed ceiling was a column of what Zoe could only describe as dark light. Their torch beams slid clean off it as if it was solid, but she could see it had no real substance. It was a shadow with nothing casting it, a beam of anti-light shining from an anti-lamp, and it was making her queasy.

Jamie walked toward it and swallowing her nerves she followed. Up close, she saw that it descended through a round opening in the floor and there vanished into the darkness below. “What’d you think it is?”

He reached out a hand. She slapped it away. “Jamie! Don’t _touch_ it!”

“I wasnae gonnae touch it,” he said. Rolling his eyes, he turned away, shining his torch beam over and around the heaped up machinery. “I reckon –” What Jamie reckoned, she never learned, for he grabbed her arm and said, “whisht!”

“I wasn’t talking!” Zoe hissed back.

“Look!”

Stepping softly beside him, Zoe saw it – beyond the anomaly, a dark squat figure. They waited, hearts in their mouths, but it was motionless. All was still.

Quietly, Jamie stepped away, touching Zoe’s shoulder in a silent _stay put_. Normally she’d go straight after him, but this place, this dark, silent place, was giving her the creeps. She watched as he paced forward towards the figure, shining his torch over it. She heard him breathe out. “Aye. He’s dead, right enough.”

Still not daring to raise her voice, Zoe stepped out from behind the anomaly. “Are you sure?”

“See for yourself.” He beckoned her over.

It was roughly humanoid, skeletal, kneeling on the floor with the broken remains of on arm stretched out towards the anomaly. Seeing scorched metal and wires, she thought it was the remains of a robot, but when she looked closer she saw a white glint of bone. Whatever it was, it was long dead.

Glancing up, she found that Jamie’s eyes were trained on what remained of the thing’s face. “I’ve a _really_ bad feeling about this place.”

“You say that about everywhere,” Zoe whispered. There was a nasty smell in the air, a smell not just of stale air but of decay. Stepping further into the darkness, she saw a metallic frame, some kind of machine stripped down to its skeleton. It looked like a frayed web, an empty space at the centre where the spider would sit.

Something caught her eye, a flash of light. No – a reflection, her own torch beam flashing off something silver through an open door opposite. “Jamie,” she hissed.

“Hmm?” Jamie froze, fingers a scant inch away from touching the dead thing. Angling his torch beam beside hers, he saw it too.

“We should get the Doctor,” Zoe whispered. “We ought to tell him we found the time whatsit.”

“Aye,” Jamie agreed.

They exchanged a glance and, as one, walked towards the door.

The temporal anomaly fell into the darkness behind them, their torches lighting up the walls and floor in uneven patches as they drew closer and closer. Beyond the door stood a silver figure, silent and still as a sentry – and the sight of it filled their veins with ice.

A cyberman.

Jamie and Zoe stood frozen in the doorway, hearts pounding in their ears, terrified to move, even to blink. They stared and the cyberman stared back, equally unblinking. But as the agonising seconds ticked by, it didn’t react.

“Why’s it no’ movin’?” hissed Jamie.

“It must have seen us,” whispered Zoe.

“Is it dead?”

“I don’t know.”

Jamie nodded – and, steeling himself, stepped forward. “ _Jamie_!” Zoe hissed. “Jamie, don’t!”

Stretching out a hand, Jamie ever-so-gingerly touched its chest plate. Nothing. Summoning up all his courage, he rapped his knuckles on it with a hollow ringing of metal. “See?” He turned to Zoe with a grin of relief. “It’s dead.”

“Inert, anyway.” Zoe stepped over the threshold and peered up at its seemingly lifeless face, at its empty eye-sockets and slit-mouth. She shone her torch at the door, following its gaze. It had been looking, she judged, directly at the anomaly.

“This is a cyber-station,” Jamie said grimly. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Zoe.

“There’ll be more of them,” he said with a sober nod.

“Yes.”

Together, they studied the inert cyberman, its tall, lanky body seemingly primed for movement, its skull-like helmet, its metal hands, clenched into fists. Neither of them could shake the thought that at any moment it might – 

With a hum and a _snap_ , the room lit up, white light beating down upon them from the ceiling. Zoe jumped. Jamie let out a squawk of alarm and almost dropped his torch. “ _What_ the –”

There was a crackle and a familiar voice rang out from a panel in the wall. “Only me!” said the Doctor. “I found, ah, some sort of control room – thought I might as well switch the lights on, eh?”

“There’s a cyberman, Doctor!” said Jamie.

“What?” cried the Doctor. “A cyberman? Are you both alright?”

“We’re fine,” said Zoe.

“We think it’s dead,” said Jamie.

“Inert,” Zoe corrected. “And, Doctor – we found the temporal whatsit.”

“ _Did_ you?” said the Doctor. “Splendid! What does it look like?”

“A sort of black cylinder,” said Zoe. “Like a hole in space-time, I think.”

“It’s creepy,” Jamie chipped in.

“Yes, thank you Jamie. It’s in the – well, it’s a sort of central chamber,” said Zoe. “It’s not in a very good way, it looks as if someone’s torn the place apart trying to find something.”

Rolling his eyes, Jamie looked at his feet. The floor was humming gently. The wall, too, he found when he touched his hand to it. It wasn’t just the lights. The whole station was powering up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of movement.

“Erm, Zoe –”

The cyberman’s hand flexed.

“Quiet, Jamie. We’re talking.”

Its head turned, ever so slightly, to look at them.

“Zo _¬ee_.” Jamie tugged ineffectually on her arm. 

The cyberman straightened up, a blue glow building inside its skull.

“Ach, come _on_!” Grabbing her arm, Jamie dragged her bodily away from the control panel – just as the cyberman raised an arm and lurched, semi-conscious, towards them. 

Zoe cried out in alarm and together they threw themselves at the door. Jamie grabbed the metal handle and yanked, and as he pulled the door closed behind them, he heard the Doctor cry, “oh, oh my word! Run – run back to the TARDIS, I’ll find you –”

With a ringing _clang_ of metal on metal, the door connected not with its frame but with the cyberman’s outstretched arm, bending at the elbow as it grabbed for them, fingers flexing, clenching and unclenching. Its other hand wormed its way through the crack.

With her full weight, Zoe pressed herself against the door, but it was clear that even together they couldn’t close it. The cyberman was too strong and centimetre by centimetre, the door was sliding open.

“Zoe, run,” said Jamie between gritted teeth.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I’ll be behind you,” he said, muscles screaming from the effort of holding the door. “I’ll catch you up.”

“Jamie, no –”

“Just _go_!”

Zoe looked at him one last time, his teeth gritted, his knuckles white, his eyes grim, the door inching and inching open as the cyberman forced its way through. For an agonising moment, she hesitated, torn between logic, ethics, and sheer self-preservation.

Against her better judgement, she ran.

*

“Time-travelling cybermen,” whispered the Doctor. “It hardly bears thinking about.”

“Are you sure that’s what they’re doing?” Zoe whispered back.

They were crouched in the station’s central chamber, hidden by a bank of torn-out machinery. The way back to the TARDIS had been blocked, a cyberman guarding the doorway. Zoe had run around and around like a rat in a maze, all the paths leadings her here, to the centre.

Two cybermen were busy at the controls, pulling levers and switches with no apparent effect.

“It’s a sort of time portal,” said the Doctor, half whispering. “A highly _unstable_ time portal, I should say. If it’s activated, the whole station will be sucked through and spat out the other side. It’s rather like, ah, eating yourself.”

Zoe shivered. “Will it work?”

“Evidently it’s worked at least once,” whispered the Doctor.

Of course; how else could they be here, at the cold end of the universe? Zoe kicked herself for not seeing it. “I wonder when they were aiming for,” she mused.

“You may not have to wonder much longer,” said the Doctor softly.

“What do you mean?”

“I rather think you might get to ask them,” he said. “We’ve been spotted.”

Following his gaze, Zoe saw two sets of empty metal eyes gazing upon them. “Oh, no –” She sprang to her feet and bolted – straight into the arms of a third cyberman. Twisting in its vice-like grip, she saw the Doctor, caught as well.

“Oh, oh let _go_!” he was saying, trying vainly to pull his arm from the cyberman’s iron grip. “Oww.”

Though she struggled with all her might, she was drawn from her hiding place into the centre of the control room. There was very little sense, she saw, in fighting. It was basic logic; when one couldn’t run or fight, the thing to do was to wait. She went slack in the cyberman’s grip, breathing heavily.

It was hardly hopeless, she told herself. They’d been in far worse corners than this. The Doctor would think of something. And Jamie, Jamie might still be free. He had as much of a knack for getting out of trouble as getting into it.

But in the pit of her stomach she had a dreadful, sick feeling, a horrible suspicion that Jamie was already dead, gunned down by the cyberman long before he reached safety.

She had to focus. She studied the three cybermen who had caught them. To the untrained eye they might look identical to those she’d encountered before, but there were differences, subtle changes to the design of the armour. She judged that these cybermen had been more advanced, once, sleeker, more streamlined. But the sheen was gone from their armour. Their casings were scratched and pitted and scorched, components cannibalised from other parts of the station were wired into their chest units. One had lost one of the bars protruding from his helmet altogether.

They had no apparent leader, but one, his armour blackened, stepped forward and aimed a blinking device at the Doctor. He flinched and stammered as if expecting to be shot, but instead the device emitted a whine and a thin blue light that ran across the Doctor’s features. “You Are The Doctor.”

“What of it?”

“This Is Impossible. You Are Dead.”

“Dead? Me?” said the Doctor, his face a picture of innocent confusion. “Well, someone’s been spreading nasty rumours, haven’t they? Me, dead. Really, now.”

“Your Presence Here Is Impossible.”

“What, at the end of the universe?” said the Doctor. “You’re hardly the only ones who can travel in time, you know.”

The cybermen exchanged glances as if silently conferring. “You Are An Enemy Of The Cybermen.”

“Yes, and I’m rather proud of it!” The Doctor peered up at the cyberman’s stoic face. “What do you have to say to _that_?”

“You Can Repair The Portal.”

The Doctor blinked, his mouth hanging open in astonishment. “Eh?”

“You Have Knowledge Of Time Travel. You Can Repair The Portal.”

“Well, yes, I suppose I _can_ ,” said the Doctor, “but I shan’t.”

The cyberman’s grip on Zoe tightened and she let out a choked yelp – only to fall silent when a metal hand took hold of her skull. She went still as a statue in its arms, knowing all too well what it was threatening.

“You Will Repair The Portal Or The Human Female Will Die.”

“Now – now, there’s no need for that,” the Doctor stammered. “I, I –”

“Doctor,” Zoe gasped out. It was all she dared to say; she didn’t trust herself not to beg him to help, for they meant it. They really meant it; inasmuch as an emotionless entity could be desperate, they were truly desperate.

The Doctor’s eyes flicked to her stricken face. The tip of his tongue darted out, wetting his lips. “Well, now, now let me see.” He twisted out of his captor’s grip and darted to the nearest control panel. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said, skimming over the readings. “What a jolly mess you’ve made!” He glowered up at the cybermen like a scolding schoolteacher. “You have no idea what you’re meddling with!”

“You Will Repair The Portal.”

The cyberman’s other hand clasped Zoe’s throat and began to squeeze.

“Not until you release Zoe I shan’t!”

“You Will Repair The Portal.”

“Oh goodness, are you listening to a word I say?” said the Doctor. “It might take a little while, you know! Surely you can’t expect me to concentrate with your – your _goon_ over there choking poor Zoe?”

The cybermen exchanged silent glowers. At length, the cyberman’s grip on Zoe loosened and she could breathe. She gasped, bowing her head, the cyberman a chilly, looming presence at her back.

“Now, that’s better,” said the Doctor. “Let’s see, shall we?” Bending over the control panel, he flipped switches and twisted knobs and poked at dials, all the while muttering to himself, “oh dear, oh dear.” Tugging away a loose panel, he poked his head right inside. Oh, dear,” he said, his voice echoing. He emerged, hair ruffled, and said, “you ought to get a man in.”

“You Will Repair The Portal?” If she didn’t know better, Zoe would have called the cyberman’s voice plaintive.

“I couldn’t if I wanted to.” The Doctor dusted black flakes off his hands. “Your whole central control circuit’s fried to a crisp. Even if I _had_ the parts to repair it, well – you’ve created a, a highly unstable temporal – well, a whirlpool! If I meddle with what’s left of its control module or disconnect the power it’ll, well, collapse – and it would most likely take this whole station with it, and everything in it! If you weren’t in such a ghastly predicament I’d say you ought to cut and run.

The cybermen’s gaze was impassive. “You Are Lying. You Can Effect Repairs.”

The Doctor held up his hands. “Perhaps if I had a – a very long time and some very complex tools – and access to the, ah, Eye of –”

“The Human Female Will Die.”

Zoe tried to edge away, but a metal hand, clasping her shoulder, dragged her back. She looked at the portal, the chilly black pillar. A whirlpool in time – the eye of a temporal hurricane, suspended.

“Now, really! Do you not think I’d repair it – if I could? What does it matter to me if you go on your way? I’d hardly let her die, would I?”

“This Is Logical.” She could almost see their brains turning in their heads as they mulled this over, perhaps realising at last that, truly, the Doctor couldn’t help them.

Unnoticed, Zoe took a small step away.

“Of course it is.” The Doctor dusted down his coat. “So if you’d be so kind as to, ah, let us go –”

“You Will Give Us Your Time Capsule.”

“P-pardon?” the Doctor sputtered.

“You Will Give Us Access To Your Time Capsule Or The Human Female Will Die.”

“I – I will not!”

“You Will Give Us Access To Your Time Capsule. It Is Logical.”

And it _was_ logical, in as much as base emotional responses could be logical. Zoe saw it all in a moment. Naturally the Doctor wouldn’t stand by and let them kill her, not while there were other options. He’d let them into the TARDIS, thinking he could get the jump on them later. And maybe he could – but maybe he couldn’t.

It was too big a risk. Cybermen with malfunctioning time machines was one thing. Cybermen with TARDISes! Zoe would rather die that let the cybermen invade all of time and space, rather die than even risk it, but the Doctor wouldn’t see it that way. He was too soft, too sure of his own cunning.

He’d make the wrong choice. He’d make the wrong choice and she couldn’t stop him – but she could take the choice away from him. She couldn’t outrun or outfight the cybermen – they were all around her, faster and stronger than her, they’d be on her in a moment – but there was one way out, if she was quick and careful. She could remove the dilemma and with her gone the Doctor would be free to make the right choice.

While the Doctor was stammering, “I, I –” while the cybermen’s eyes were riveted on him, waiting for his answer, while everyone’s attention was elsewhere, Zoe sprang forward. Quick as a cat, she jumped up onto the ledge around the temporal anomaly.

“Stop!” bellowed a cyberman, reaching out an ineffectual hand.

The Doctor cried, “Zoe, no! Don’t!”

Glancing over her shoulder, Zoe looked at him, took in his face, his clothes, his horrified expression, committing it all to memory lest she never seen him again.

And then, summoning up every last ounce of her courage, she leapt.


	2. Episode 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It wasn’t so much out of the frying pan and into the fire as out of the frying pan straight into the other, larger frying pan._
> 
>  
> 
> Zoe journeys to the cyber-station's past - or its future...

“Zoe, no! Don’t!” cried the Doctor.

Zoe glanced over her shoulder, taking one last look at him – and then she leapt into the temporal anomaly. 

It wasn’t like falling. Just as the Doctor had said, it was like being eaten, like being sucked into a point somewhere within her own abdomen. Painless, but acutely disturbing. Darkness licked her from every side, darkness broken by flashes of silver light. For a split second she thought she saw herself from every angle, repeated over and over, warped and bent as if she were suspended in a hall of mirrors –

She arrived. The temporal anomaly spat her out like a cork from a bottle; she flew through the air, striking the metal floor hard and lying winded. She breathed deeply once, twice, three times, till she was sure she had all of her limbs – before looking around.

It wasn’t so much out of the frying pan and into the fire as out of the frying pan straight into the other, larger frying pan. She was at the base of the temporal anomaly. The lights were stark white, reflecting off the mirror-like floor. She counted four, six, eight cybermen standing around the chamber, working at panels of gleaming instruments. One by one, their eyeless faces turned to look at her.

She thought for a moment they were astonished at her arrival, but of course, she was projecting. They were merely taking the time to process her. Nonetheless, she took full advantage of the distraction.

Scrambling to her feet, she bolted. She ran through an open doorway – straight into another cyberman. She dodged its grasping arms, but there was another, another. They were everywhere, the station crawling with them like lice.

Before she had time to think of a plan, she was cornered. Ahead of her there was nothing but a stretch of blank metal wall. Behind were two cybermen, aiming slender silvery guns at her head. She might have closed her eyes, looked away, but she couldn’t. She stood, frozen, staring at their cold faces. Her heart hammered in her chest. This was really it. She was really going to die. Her one consolation was that, with her gone, the Doctor might be able to escape –

“Wait.”

The voice rattled through the corridor, deep and toneless. Superficially no different from any other cyberman’s voice, but somehow, through some quality she couldn’t identify, it was a voice that carried authority. 

The cyberman lowered their guns, and Zoe could breathe again. Gulping down air, she turned to face her unlikely saviour.

Striding down the corridor towards her was a cyberman. But for the black lines on his helmet, he was identical to all the others – identical, but for an aura of command. At his back, like an honour-guard, marched four armed cybermen.

The cyberleader took one last stride and stopped a pace ahead of her. Lightning-quick, its metal hand grasped her arm and tugged her away from the wall. Zoe cried out in shock and pain, but he didn’t notice, or didn’t care to. He raised his other arm. Set into his wrist was a black screen that quickly lit up with lights and flashing numbers. Zoe’s eyes watered. As she blinked away spots she glimpsed rows of figures dancing across the screen.

Releasing her arm, the cyberleader intoned, “DNA Scan Confirms. You Are Human Female Designate Zoe Heriot.”

“Yes.” Zoe rubbed her aching arm.

“This Is Impossible.”

“Who says?”

“Your Presence Here Is Impossible. You Will Explain.”

“Well, if I’m so _impossible_ I’ll gladly leave.” Zoe made a move towards the portal chamber. At once its hand gripped her arm, squeezing so tight she gasped.

“Your Presence Is Impossible. You Must Be Assessed. You Must Be Evaluated.”

So it spoke, leading her along the corridor, her feet dragging leaden along the metal floor. “Where are you _taking_ me?”

“To The Cyber-Planner.”

High up in that central chamber, the temporal anomaly throbbed behind glass, the dark, beating heart of the station. When first she passed through the doors, it blocked Zoe’s view. It wasn’t till she rounded it that, slowly, by degrees, she saw the thing crouched beyond.

Where at the other end of the anomaly there was nothing but a blackened frame, here there was a machine, if you could call it a machine. It was a cluttered, unstreamlined mess, a far cry from the smooth, silvery cyber-technology that comprised the main body of the station. A tumble of wires wrapped around a hideous tank, within which floated a greyish, shrivelled brain, trailing nerve endings like tentacles. Something about it wasn’t right; there was something off about the structure. It was not, Zoe realised, a human brain.

From the tank trailed a network of fines wires and at the centre of the web was a figure, a hunched shape like a skeleton wrapped in silver, bowed as if in thought. Its face was an eyeless metal mask, the back of its skull translucent glass or plastic, revealing the brain tissue within. Blue lights glowed in its eye sockets.

Zoe shrank back, repelled. Perhaps it was the sickly scent in the air – or its withered, reinforced limbs, tense, poised as if to point. Her gorge was rising, her eyes watering, every hair on her body standing on end.

A light blinked in its slit-mouth. “ _What Is This_?”

“Human Female Zoe Heriot,” answered the cyberleader.

“ _This Is Impossible_.”

“Will you two stop saying I’m impossible?” said Zoe. “I’m here, aren’t I? I can’t possibly be impossible. It’s only logical.”

“ _You Entered The Station Through The Temporal Inversion Core. This Is Logical._ ”

“If you mean the temporal whatsit, then yes. I did.” Zoe wiped her watering eyes.

“ _Temporal Whatsit_ ,” repeated the planner. “ _Alternative Term For Temporal Inversion Core. Illogical._ ”

Two bright pin-pricks of light gazed at her, but Zoe didn’t gaze back. She was gazing beyond the cyber planner, at the dark, block shape hidden behind its web, linked to the cyberplanner by an ugly mass of wiring. Faintly, on the edge of her hearing, she could hear the deep bass boom of a tolling bell. A dim orange light burned.

She’d assumed that this was the past, the station in its prime, before the calamity that stranded it at the end of time – surely it had to be the past? What else could it be?”

Against her better judgement, she looked up. Over her head there stretched a transparent dome. At the other end of the anomaly, it had been black as polished onyx, but here it was a riot of grey and red.

Everything was turned upside down. She was looking down upon the Earth, at the grey-white arctic. The planet span below them and all around it, in all directions, were other cyber-stations, each identical to the one in which she stood. The planet surface was grey and brown and white, stripped of green, stripped of blue, the seats shrunken and brown. She could see the dull glow of fires spanning continents. Her planet hung above her head, desecrated.

“Why?” she said, struggling to speak. “Why am I impossible? Did you kill me already – is that it?”

“ _Human Female Zoe Heriot Was Apprehended And Found Suitable For Full Cyber Conversion._ ”

Blinking away tears, Zoe watched as another station fizzled into existence.

“ _Human Female Zoe Heriot Converted Into Cyber Planner_.”

“You’re me.”

“ _Incorrect. I Am The Cyber Planner_.”

“You _were_ me.”

“ _Correct_.”

Zoe’s mind raced. She looked up through the dome, up at all those space stations, spinning and spinning, each with their silent, deadly cargo of cybermen, each with their own transparent dome, each with a black vortex at their heart. Her mind raced.

“They’re all the same, aren’t they? They’re all this station.”

“ _This Is Correct_.”

“You’ve – you’ve used the temporal anomaly to fly back and forth through time – to duplicate yourselves!” Zoe cried. “That’s impossible – or at the very least, _highly_ inadvisable. You’re going to punch a hole in the universe!”

“ _Incorrect. Paradox Is Sustainable_.”

“Who says?” Zoe’s eyes were watering and although she knew the cybermen almost certainly wouldn’t understand the significance of the gesture, she couldn’t bring herself to wipe them. “You couldn’t even make your time machine work without – without the Doctor – without the Doctor’s help –”

She gazed, horrified, at the mass of neural tissue suspended above the cyber planner, not daring to see it for what it was.

“ _The Doctor Was Terminated._ ”

“No,” Zoe breathed.

“ _His Brain Tissues Was Harvested And Added To Our Neural Web_.”

“No, no –”

“ _His Knowledge Of Time Travel Was Acquired. The Paradox Was Sustained Using The Power Of His TARDIS._ ”

And there it stood, the TARDIS, behind the web, its doors flung open, wires leading in and out, draining its energy. She’d been trying not to look too closely, trying not to see it for what it was, but now it was unavoidable. The TARDIS, ripped over and scavenged like the carcass of a hunted animal.

Zoe breathed in. “This is sick,” she said. “You aren’t even a monster. You’re an abhorrence. You shouldn’t exist.”

“ _You Will Become Like Us_.”

“What?”

“ _You Will Be Made Like Us._ ”

“No – no, you can’t.” Zoe’s heart quickened as she struggled to take it in. She thought she’d have more time, before they turned her into the – the _thing_ before her. She thought she’d have to go back through the anomaly first and then, on the other side, she might have time to find a way out of it. But it was too late, but they meant to do it here, _now_. The cyberleader’s hands were clutching at her shoulders, preparing to drag her to the conversion chamber.

They were fast. She could be faster.

“I mean you literally can’t,” she gabbled. “It’s not possible. Your whole existence is one big paradox already. If you make me into a cyberplanner now, before I have a chance to become you, your system will break apart. You’ll cancel yourself out.” She held her head up high. “So you’ll just have to send me back through the temporal anomaly, so that I can turn into you. It’s the only way.”

The cyberplanner’s eyes glowed at her.

“Don’t you know that?” Zoe bluffed. “The Doctor would have known – and you know everything he knows, don’t you? Can’t you check, if you don’t believe me?”

“ _Information Inconclusive_.”

“You know I’m right.”

“ _Paradox Must Be Resolvable. Paradox Must Be Resolved_.”

“You’ll only have to send me back.”

“ _We Must Calculate. Remove Her_.”

“If you’d only listen to me, I can save you time –”

The cold hands on her shoulder yanked her back, hard. The cyberleader took her roughly from the chamber, gripping her arm painfully tight, to a small room, little more than a closet, where she was to wait. It threw her to the floor.

Gasping, clutching her aching arm, Zoe looked up at it. It loomed over her, its hands half-clenched into fists, and though she knew it was impossible she wondered if there might be some vestigial emotion in its gaze, some anger, some urge to commit violence. But that couldn’t be. It was a cyberman. It felt nothing. It would kill her only if it was logical to do so, and in their current situation her death would be the most illogical thing of all.

“You Will Wait.”

“That’s alright. I’m good at waiting.” Drawing up her knees to her chest, Zoe tried to think of anything but the cyberplanner, the cyberplanner and the twisted mass of nervous system it had yoked to itself.

She breathed deeply, and tried to think through her situation logical. How could this have happened? The Doctor must have – must be going to – let the cyberman into the TARDIS, and somehow, somehow they had – were going to – gain control, and kill him, and turn her into, into – _that_. They must have used the power of the TARDIS to repair their station and travel back in time, over and over, until they had a fleet a thousand-strong.

Something was nagging at her, and suddenly she knew what it was. The machine she and Jamie had found, the dead machine – she’d forgotten about it the moment they’d come upon the cyberman, but looking back she recognised it for the remains of a cyberplanner, its heart and brain ripped away.

A different cyberplanner – surely? Surely this couldn’t be the past _and_ that future? The Doctor would know, if it was possible, but the Doctor was…

Zoe rubbed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. This was making her head spin. She wanted the Doctor, to make sense of it all, to run rings around the cyberman and make silly jokes, and hold her hand. And she wanted Jamie, brave, reliable Jamie, so determined to look after her, whether or not she needed it. But the Doctor was – and Jamie was –

A wave of icy-cold unease coursed over her as she realised she didn’t know.

“Jamie.”

Silence. She looked up at the cyberleader.

“What happened to Jamie?”

It stared down at her, its eyes hollow, stared for so long that she was certain it wasn’t going to answer. But then, at least, it spoke. “James Robert Maccrimmon.”

“Yes,” said Zoe. “Yes, Jamie – what happened to him? Did you – is he – did you k-kill him too?”

“Human Male James Robert Maccrimmon Designated Suitable For Conversion,” it said, and Zoe couldn’t make a sound, could barely breathe.

The fingers of its left hand were slowly, slowly drawing into a fist.

“Human Male James Robert Maccrimmon Designated New Cyber-Leader.”

Cold, numb to her very core, Zoe stared at its blank metal face. Comprehension came so slowly, so agonisingly slowly. “No – no, you can’t be.”

It said nothing.

“You’re not him – you _can’t_ be –”

Its fist drew tighter, fingers squeezing nothing.

“You’re not him,” she choked out. “You’re not Jamie, you’re _not_ –”

She couldn’t speak; any more words would choke her. The truth would choke her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even cry. All she could do was sob weakly, a thin, whimpering noise that turned swiftly into a scream.

*

In the hours that followed, she sat in silence, her back to the wall, not looking up at the figure looming over her. Her tears had long since dried, when she was summoned.

The cyberleader was a shadow at her back as she was led back to the planner, and she hated it, hated it with every fibre of her being.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she stood waiting. There was no reply. “I don’t know how this could have happened. I don’t understand why I didn’t – I should have looked after you better.” Steeling herself, she looked at its face. “I’m so sorry.”

For a few aching moments he stared at her with empty, unblinking eyes. “The Cyberplanner Will See You Now.”

The doors opened and there it was, the sick tableau. The hideous figure of the cyberplanner, the TARDIS, ripped open, the endless parade of identical stations above, and humming at the centre of it all, the temporal anomaly.

In her quiet contemplation, Zoe had considered every option available to her. She’d thought through them all, every choice she could make, all the potential consequences, all the ways this could end. And now everything was clear; there was only one recourse left to her, much as she might revile it. But when she saw the cyberplanner crouching in its web, her insides twisted, her resolve faltering.

“ _It Has Been Decided_ ,” said the cyberplanner.

“It has?” Zoe’s voice trembled.

“ _The Paradox Is Sustainable. You Will Be Converted. You Will Be Made Like Me. My Cognitive Matrix Will Be Transferred Into Your Brain. You Will Be A New Cyberplanner_. ”

Zoe bowed her head. “Yes. I – I understand.” She breathed deep. “It’s only logical.”

“ _Prepare Subject For Transference_.”

As metal hands gripped her shoulders, forcing her head forward, she squeezed her eyes shut. A few tears seeped out. She struggled a little, but soon gave up. There was no sense in fighting this. Some things couldn’t be changed. That was something she’d learned long before she met the Doctor.

From the cyberplanner, they unfurled a long cable capped with a needle, like a tentacle, or a stinger. The cyberleader’s hand twisted in her hair, forcing her head forward. With his other hand, he put the needle to her skin.

There was a pause, a moment of hesitation. Was he reluctant, she wondered, or merely looking to the cyberplanner for permission.

It came, a single word: “Begin.”

A sharp, stinging pain as the cable connected, a burning sensation and a numbness as its metallic tendrils worked their way to her spinal cord and dug in like tiny claws. She breathed in, mentally preparing herself – but too late, she realised there was nothing she could do, to prepare for this.

Information flooded her brain like a wave of ice, an endless wave of numbers, figures, equations, threatening to overwhelm her. She swayed, only the cyberleader’s dreadful iron grip on her shoulders keeping her upright.

Anyone else had been lost, but to Zoe, whose mind was already half a computer, it wasn’t so shocking. It was chaos only until it wasn’t, until she saw it all with perfect clarity; the plan, the paradox, the perfectly balanced logic of it. There was no beauty in it, there could never be beauty, but there was a kind of satisfaction, a certainty. It was cold logic in its purest form, the risks perfectly calculated, the consequences finely balanced, all that computational power with the energy source of the Doctor’s TARDIS behind it all.

It was almost too much, the cyberplanner almost too strong. It was _her_ , her mind, twisted into something more powerful, more clever, than she could ever be; something cold and hideous; something unbearably and hideously ugly.

But it wasn’t the only one with a plan.

As her body went slack in the grip of the machine, the cyberleader’s hands released her shoulders. It was now or be lost forever. Reaching up with a trembling hand, she gripped the table and tugged with all her might. She wrenched it out of her neck and it burned and bled but there wasn’t time for pain, there wasn’t time for anything.

It wasn’t so much a plan as an artful gamble. Alone, she had asked herself: _what would the Doctor do_? Stage one: play for time. Stage two: find out their plans. Stage three: turn their strength back on them.

Before any of them could react, she darted forward and thrust the bloodied end of the cable into the cyberplanner’s chest.

The wizened thing that had once been her let out a screech, a high-pitched electronic whine, like static, like feedback. It screamed, its web sparking, the sickly liquid in its tank bubbling and frothing.

Something shoved her aside. She hit the floor and, turning, saw the cyberleader, tugging vainly at the cable. It was already too late. Though it came away in his hand, it too late.

“ _Restrain The Human_ ,” the cyberplanner was chanting. “ _Restrain The Human, Human Female Zoe Heriot Must Be Converted, Human Female Zoe Heriot Must, Be, Converted, Con-verted, Con-ver-ted, Con-verrr-teddd_ …”

With a crackle of electronics, a hiss of air escaping, the lights in its eyes died.

In the silence that followed, the first to move was the cyberleader. Gripping the still-sparking cable, his head swung to face Zoe. Tossing the cable aside, he advanced.

Zoe didn’t hesitate. Scrambling to her feet, she threw herself at the TARDIS, forcing herself through the hot tangle of wires, pulling and snapping cables from their places. There, just inches away, was her target.

A heavy socket, a joint where cybertechnology met the TARDIS. Crouching, reaching out through the cables, she took ahold of its two halves and twisted. It was unyielding, a hot squeak of metal, but at last it came away. Scrambling out of the web, she held in her hands a thick, humming cable.

“Stay back!” 

The cyberleader, striding round the web towards her, halted.

“I don’t want to do this.” Zoe proffered the cable. “Not to you. Please, just let me go.”

“Restrain Her,” said the cyberleader.

Stage four: _kill them both_. Summoning up every ounce of her courage, Zoe stepped forward and jabbed the cable directly into the cyberleader’s chest unit.

The cyberleader howled. Sparks flew from his chest as he writhed and spasmed, the raw power of the TARDIS ripping through his flimsy metallic body. He staggered, wheeling away from her in confusion, still screaming.

The cybermen were converging on her, but Zoe didn’t look at them. She only had eyes for the temporal anomaly, the black pillar mere feet away. If she could only get to it, before they got to her…

Dodging the cyberleader, she ran full pelt towards the anomaly. She heard heavy, clumsy footsteps amongst the neat rapping of cyber-feet. Still sparking, still screaming, his armour blackening, he was following her.

Zoe didn’t look back. Evading the grasping hands of the cybermen, she scrambled onto the ledge.

Overcome, the cyberleader fell to his knees. He stretched out a hand towards Zoe, towards the anomaly – and with a final sick screech, he locked in place, the light within his skull dying.

Just as a hand groped at her shoulder, threatening to pull her down, Zoe leapt into the abyss.

Dark chaos twisted around her, spinning her end over end. She saw herself, repeated over and over, and she thought she saw the Doctor and Jamie as well, far off in the distance.  
She saw the station, shuddering in the blackness of space and imploding, following her through the anomaly, a shattered madness of metal, refracted all around her as if seen through a kaleidoscope – she saw the cyber fleet, every one of their thousand of stations winking out in a fizzle of temporal residue –

She nothing at all, solid inky darkness all around her like murky water –

– She hit the bottom.

More than anything else, she wanted to curl up there and cry, but there was no time for that. She leapt to her feet, half expecting to find herself surrounded by cybermen, but there was no-one there. She was in a round, empty chamber. Behind her, the temporal anomaly silently burned. The air smelled stale. The light was dim.

She was aboard the station. There could be no doubt about that. She thought perhaps she was at the base, at the lowest point of the anomaly, the rest of the station towering above her. But when was she? Was this before she and Jamie and the Doctor arrived – or after the cybermen invaded earth?

There was no way to be sure. She’d have to chance it.

Outside, the corridors were silent, half in shadow. That was a good sign. She hadn’t seen the whole station, she had only a partial map in her head, but the cybermen were logical. She could piece the grid together, complete the map, and navigate –

Rounding a corner, she barrelled straight into Jamie.

“Oof!”

“Jamie?”

“Hey – Zoe?” he said. “I thought – hey, now!”

Zoe threw her arms around him and hugged him with all her might. If it wasn’t for the looming disaster, she might not have let go. Pressing her face into his chest, she said, “Jamie, it’s so good to see you.”

“It’s no’ been that long,” said Jamie, puzzled by the display of affection, but hugging back regardless. “What’s all this about?”

“There’s no time to explain,” said Zoe, pulling away from him, all business. “We have to open the temporal whatsit.”

“Eh?”

“If we overload the power supply, it should open up all the way – and snap closed. Like an elastic band.”

“Hey, now.” Jamie wagged an accusing finger in her face. “The Doctor said we weren’t tae play around with it.”

“Well, he’s wrong!” Zoe snapped. “And I’m not playing around, I know just what I’m doing – oh, there’s no _time_!” She grabbed his arm and wrenched, trying to force him to follow her, but Jamie held his ground.

“The Doctor said –”

“The Doctor’s not _here_!” Zoe hissed. “Oh, _Jamie_ – listen. I’ve been through the whatsit.”

“Been through –”

“It was the only way – I had to go through, and it took me to the future. _Our_ future.”

“Our future?”

“Yes, and the cybermen had taken over earth. They’d used this station to make an army, and they’d taken the earth –”

“Och, you’re no’ talkin’ sense.”

“And they’d killed – they’re _going_ to kill the Doctor, and turn me into a cyberplanner, and you – you were a cyberman.”

Jamie’s eyes were widening. She’d never seen that look on his face before. She never wanted to see it again. “I –”

“That’s what’s going to happen, if we don’t stop them, and I know how to stop it, and I need you to _trust me_ ,” she said in a breathless rush.

Jamie’s hand was gripping her arm too-tight, and she could hear his breath coming in short pants as she processed what she was saying. She counted the agonising seconds as he thought it through, one, two, three. “All of us?”

“All of us,” Zoe repeated.

Breathing deep, Jamie nodded. “Aye. We do it your way.”

From outside the control room, they could hear the Doctor’s voice raised to a feverish pitch, still trying to argue his way out. How long had he been at it, Zoe wondered – how long had se been gone? Had it been any time at all?

Together, they peered through the open doorway. The Doctor was standing near the anomaly, his hands raised in a gesture of defiant surrender. “Oh, oh you’re aren’t listening!” he was saying. “It simply isn’t possible – I couldn’t even if I wanted to. There are _rules_ about this sort of thing!”

“What do we do?” whispered Jamie.

“I’ll handle the whatsit,” said Zoe. “You keep them distracted.”

Jamie nodded, resolute. “Distract them. Aye.” He could do that, he reckoned. He was good at being distracting. He gave Zoe a soft nudge. “Good luck,” he said – and he slipped out of their hiding place.

At the sight of him, the Doctor’s face fell, crumpling into an expression of abject despair. Zoe could only speculate, could only imagine, what he must be feeling. He must have thought Jamie, at least, was safe – but now here he was, the cybermen angling their weapons towards him. “Hello, there!” said Jamie brightly. “Och, those are some big guns you’ve got.”

She had to focus. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled along the metal floor, ducking behind the nearest terminal.

“Jamie, Jamie, what are you doing?” the Doctor said.

“I’m no’ sure myself, Doctor,” said Jamie, eying the guns aimed at his head. He saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye – Zoe, sneaking across the room. “Thought you might want some help, givin’ these tinpots a proper seein’ to –”

“You Will Help Us,” said a cyberman, “Or The Human Male Dies.”

They hadn’t killed Jamie the first time around, Zoe told herself – but then again, the first time around he probably hadn’t been silly enough to walk straight up to the cybermen and tease them. 

“I’ve, I’ve already told you, I _can’t_ – oh, oh please don’t hurt him –” the Doctor was babbling and Zoe tried to tune him out, for she couldn’t let it get to her. She edged her way towards the control panel. She could see it, a few scant feet away, but she’d have to come out from behind her cover. If they so much as glanced in the wrong direction, she was for it.

“He Will Die.”

“If you’d only listen,” cried the Doctor. “There’s no need for threats – I’ll take you away from here, if, if that’s what you want –”

Jamie’s eyes flicked to her, peeping out from behind the terminal. Bracing herself, Zoe nodded at the control panel and prayed that he’d understand.

Nodding grimly back, Jamie looked the cyberman before him up and down, wondering grimly what to do. The Doctor was tugging ineffectually on the cyberman’s rock-steady arm, trying to pull it away, to angle its gun anywhere but at Jamie’s head. It shrugged him off as if he were an irritating bug and he stumbled, almost falling – and Jamie took that as his cue.

“Och, that’s enough,” he said, and threw himself at the cyberman.

He’d done a lot of stupid things in his time, but starting a fistfight with a cyberman might just be the silliest. He collided with the cyberman’s metal body, knocking all the breath from his lungs and not even swaying the beastie. He wouldn’t give in. He flung his arms around its neck and held on tight. Its gun went off, a sizzling bolt of energy striking the temporal anomaly and rebounding with a blue flash.

The cyberman let out a buzzing grunt of frustration and with one hand it took Jamie’s forearm and wrenched, dragging him painfully off itself. He gritted his teeth, but when it began to twist his arm he couldn’t hold back a yelp.

Zoe heard his cry and ignored it, darting out of her hiding place. He only had to keep them distracted for a few minutes, she told herself. He’d be alright. She could hear cybermen’s voices, scuffling feet, the Doctor’s plaintive cries. “Please – oh, please don’t hurt him,” he was saying. “Please – I’ll do what you want, I, I –”

The cyberman released Jamie, tossing him to the floor. Its gun swung around and Jamie didn’t hesitate. Leaping to his feet, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and clung on tight, ignoring the pain in his injured arm. Another cyberman’s hand closed on his neck.

Breathing deep, Zoe closed her eyes and consulted the information she’d taken from the cyberplanner, scanning through it as if opening a computer file inside her mind. She turned a dial sharply to the left.

The gun slipped from his grip as the cyberman dragged him back by the neck. Jamie let out a choked cry, struggling vainly against his iron grip.

Out of the corner of her eye Zoe saw Jamie, saw the cyberman lift him and threw him through the air as like a child with a worn-out toy. He struck the floor and lay there, struggling to rise. Zoe turned another dial. The temporal anomaly began to hum angrily.

It wasn’t enough. Of course, she could turn all the dials she wanted; there were failsafes. She’d need to access the override. She ran her fingers over the controls till she found a seam. Digging in her fingernails, she began to pry the panel open.

“Is that all you’ve got?” said Jamie, rising to his feet, staggering. Blood was dripping from his nose. He wiped it absently. “Eh? C’mon, then!”

“Jamie, don’t!” cried the Doctor, but he didn’t listen. He lashed out at the nearest cyberman.

The panel came away with a _snap_. Behind her she heard a nasty _smack_ of metal colliding with flesh as the cyberman struck Jamie. She didn’t look.

“Oh, oh leave him alone!” the Doctor was saying. “You, you brutes –”

Inside the terminal was a tangle of translucent wires. There wasn’t time to puzzle it all out, even with her knowledge and vast intellect. But she’d planned for this. Reaching into her pocket, she slid out Jamie’s knife. Sometimes all you really needed –

The cyberman’s arm closed around Jamie’s neck, squeezing Jamie struggled to breathe, his eyes watering, still fighting with all his might. “Please,” the Doctor was beginning, “please, please, you’re choking him –”

– was brute force. Taking a fistful of silvery wires in one hand and the knife in the other, Zoe dug in, cutting and cutting till with a _snap_ and a fizzle of electricity the whole thing came away and there was nothing between her and victory, nothing except –

Zoe bobbed upright, and at once they saw her. “Stop,” said a grim, metallic voice, a gun swinging around to point at her. She saw Jamie, his face bloodied, grappling with the metal arm around his neck; saw the Doctor, mouthing her name, his eyes flicking from her to Jamie, finally understanding.

“Stop Or You Will Be Destroyed,” said the cyberman.

Zoe shook her head, once; and pressed her hand down, hard, on the biggest button.

Somewhere, an alarm began to sound. Somewhere much closer, there was a low rumbling as the temporal anomaly began to shiver, like a dark heat shimmer; to groan; and to grow.

The cyberman whirled around, pointing its gun at the anomaly as if by firing he could stop it. Then it, too, began to thrum, to shake, its metal armour caving in. The second and third cybermen followed suit, bodies locking and shaking. Jamie slipped out of his captor’s failing grasp, wiping his face on his shirt.

“Zoe!” the Doctor cried. “Oh, Zoe, what have you done?”

Zoe opened her mouth to explain, but there was no time for that. With a dreadful lurch the floor beneath them buckled, a gaping crack tearing through the deckplate. 

“The TARDIS!” the Doctor shouted. “Quickly!” Grabbing Jamie’s arm, he made for the doors and Zoe tried follow – but there was another bone-jarring lurch and the floor before her cracked open, a yawning chasm into inky darkness.

Clinging to the terminal, she cried “Doctor!” The emptiness before her seemed to snatch up her voice. She was afraid they wouldn’t hear, but they turned. Seeing her trapped there, Jamie ran back.

His feet slipped, the void almost drawing him. He could feel it tugging at his toes, but he planted his feet firmly and held out his arms. “Jump!” Zoe looked at him, stricken, and he couldn’t tell if she’d heard. “I’ll catch you!”

Zoe took a breath, didn’t think, and jumped.

It was only a few feet but the darkness beneath her was hungry, sucking at her shoes, threatening to pull her in. For a horrible moment, flying through the air, she was certain it would swallow her up; but then she half-fell into Jamie’s arms.

The force of the collision made him stagger and though he tried to get his balance the deckplate was tilting beneath him, and they fell. They struck the deck, hard, and at once they began to slip, the void beneath them pulling them inexorably in. Jamie flung one arm around Zoe and with the other grabbed for a hold, any hold. He found the corner of a control panel and clung on, gritting his teeth at the strain.

“Jamie, Zoe!” the Doctor cried, his voice almost inaudible under the steady groan of the anomaly.

Jamie hauled her upwards by the back of her jacket, heaved her a crucial few inches up, out of the dreadful grip of nothingness. She staggered to her feet, swaying, slipping back, and reached for him, helping him up. Their hands clasped together, but the pull of it was too strong, she couldn’t save him; and just when she thought she’d lost him, the Doctor was there, adding his strength to hers, and together they pulled Jamie to relative safety.

“Come on, come _on_!” the Doctor said, hustling them out of the control room. 

Zoe looked back, just once, at the expanding, writhing mass of darkness; and she wondered just what it was that the cyberman had unleashed. They were still clinging on, though their armour buckled and cracked with the strain; and one of them turned towards her, reaching out an arm in a last, futile plea for help.

Then they came apart, the temporal anomaly ripping the armour of their bones, exposing the empty space beneath, and Zoe looked away, and ran.

The whole station was coming apart, the floor heaving and crackling like a melting river of ice. Everywhere she could hear discordant, fading alarms, crackings and wrenchings of metal. The lights were going out, shadows falling like final curtains. The Doctor led the way by torchlight, his hand in Jamie’s, Jamie’s hand in hers, the three of them blundering along, feeling their way back to the TARDIS, to the only safe place left in the universe.

There it was, directly ahead; the TARDIS, a pillar of stability amidst the crumbling station, its lamp blinking on-off-on-off. The Doctor fumbled with the keys, Jamie’s arm slung across his shoulder, holding him up. With his other arm he held Zoe, as tight as he could, acutely aware of the thunderous sounds behind them of metal breaking apart, of the building hissing breeze of air rushing away.

The door opened and they tumbled as one into the control room, the bright light and comforting hum such a shock after the station that Zoe stood blinking, unmoving, as the Doctor raced to the console and punched buttons.

 _Boom_. With a grinding, the central column began to rise. They were in flight. They were safe, or safe as ever they were. They could breathe.

“Oh, hell,” said Jamie softly.

Turning to the scanner, she saw what he’d seen. The cyber-station, eating itself. Its round disk and narrow spindle were breaking apart and falling endlessly into the centre, the crumpled debris falling – falling where? When? Into the past? Into the future? But not the future that Zoe had seen – that was fading before her eyes, a possibility snuffed out.

“What were you thinking?” the Doctor said. “Hm?” Zoe knew he was talking to her, but didn’t look at him. “What on earth possessed you to do that? Do you have any idea how, how dangerous that was – you could have torn the universe apart –”

Jamie moved to stand beside her, wiping a hand across his bloody nose. “Zoe?” 

Weakly, Zoe said, “I’ll explain later.”

Behind her, the Doctor fell silent. Jamie’s hand touched her shoulder, squeezing gently; and Zoe put her hand atop it and squeezed back, her eyes still trained on the tattered remains of the station, still falling, fading into nothingness as the TARDIS flew far away.

In their wake, they left a starless expanse, a sheer, dark emptiness. Time passed, imperceptible in the blackness. The darkness itself began to ripple, to warp, and flying out of empty space came a station, a round disk around a central spindle. It rolled and bobbed through the darkness, propelled by a distant explosion; and at its centre, something throbbed, like a heartbeat.


End file.
